Projects, Gas

Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday 19/10/2010 Page: 6

AUSTRALIA'S largest companies may rank third worldwide in terms of board and executive engagement with climate change, but they lag their global peers when it comes to setting emissions reduction targets, a report has found. A "great deal of activity, but little progress" was the verdict of the Carbon Disclosure Project's 2010 report yesterday. 94% of Australia's 100 largest companies had board or executive level responsibility for climate change, but only 47% had established emissions reduction targets.

This compared with 81% of Europe's 300 largest companies and 70% of the world's 500 largest companies all having established reduction targets. The Investor Group on Climate Change said the smaller percentage in Australia reflected the lack of policy certainty. "We believe this is directly influenced by uncertainty around climate change policy settings in Australia", the group's chief executive, Nathan Fabian, said.

In its 10th year, the Carbon Disclosure Project conducts a global climate change survey on behalf of 534 institutional investors with more than $64 trillion in assets under management. The project's new chief executive, Paul Simpson, called for Australia to take the lead on climate change.

"Clearly Australia needs to enact some kind of emissions reduction legislation and set a carbon price", he said. "It's often quoted that Australia has the highest emissions per capita. The world is looking for leadership; there is an absence of that and Australia has an opportunity to step up and do that".

Mr Simpson said there was a gulf between businesses leading on climate change and those taking a "wait and see approach". He said 19% of the world's 500 largest companies did not respond to the project. A senior analyst at AMP Capital Investors, Ian Woods, was critical of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, saying investors were more interested in companies' equity exposure to greenhouse gas emissions than what their operational controls were like.

The manager of climate change and sustainability at Santos, Susie Smith, said large companies were increasingly burdened by a myriad of carbon disclosure requirements, both regulatory and voluntary. "Survey fatigue is real", she said.